Speed Up Linux Directory Navigation with autojump: Install and Master Its Commands

The autojump utility speeds up directory navigation in a Linux terminal by recording directories you visit with cd and assigning usage‑based weights. Commands can then jump to those directories using short keywords.

Prerequisites

Python 2.6+ or Python 3.3+ must be available. The example assumes a CentOS 7.5 system with Python 2 installed. If Python is missing, a provided script can install Python 3 from two tar packages placed in the same directory:

sh python3_install.sh

Installation

Download the source archive from the official GitHub repository and unzip it.

unzip autojump-master.zip
cd autojump-master
./install.py   # or ./uninstall.py

The installer appends a line to ~/.bashrc that sources the autojump script. If the line is not added, manually insert the following and reload the shell:

[[ -s /root/.autojump/etc/profile.d/autojump.sh ]] && source /root/.autojump/etc/profile.d/autojump.sh
source ~/.bashrc

Verify the installation:

autojump --version   # or j -v

Command syntax

autojump [-h] [-a DIRECTORY] [-i [WEIGHT]] [-d [WEIGHT]] [--complete] [--purge] [-s] [-v] [DIRECTORY ...]

-h

: show help and exit -a DIRECTORY: manually add a path to the database -i [WEIGHT]: increase the weight of the current directory -d [WEIGHT]: decrease the weight of the current directory --complete: enable tab‑completion (also corrects misspellings and adds underscores) --purge: remove entries that no longer exist on the filesystem -s: display all recorded directories with their weights -v: show version information

The alias j is provided for autojump. Example usages:

# j autojump
/root/autojump-master

# jc bin
/root/autojump-master/bin

# jo music

# jco images

If multiple directories match the same keyword, the highest‑weight entry is chosen by default. Prefixing the command with o selects the lower‑weight entry:

# j fi
/opt/two/first
# j o fi
/opt/one/first

Database inspection

List recorded entries and their weights: # j -s The data file is stored at ~/.local/share/autojump/autojump.txt. Do not delete or overwrite this file, as it contains the accumulated statistics.

# ls -l ~/.local/share/autojump/
-rw------- 1 root root 305 Mar 16 16:14 autojump.txt
-rw------- 1 root root  27 Mar 16 11:16 autojump.txt.bak

Limitations and recommendations

Only directories that have been visited with cd are recorded; unvisited paths cannot be jumped to.

Paths beginning with a hyphen ( -) are not supported.

autojump hooks into the $PROMPT_COMMAND variable. Avoid overwriting this variable; if additional commands are needed, append them to the existing $PROMPT_COMMAND value.

Reference

GitHub repository: https://github.com/wting/autojump